Not only that, but musicians are more easily able to filter out background noise to focus on a human voice, meaning that they’re doubly better at detecting emotion in, say, a crowded bar or restaurant. Musical training also involves picking your notes out from all of the others that are played, and identifying which notes are most relevant to yours.

Why is this? Studying music actually re-wires the brain to be this way. It makes us not only more adept at detecting emotions, but also at expressing and thinking about them. Going back to my point of music being a language of pure emotion, just like speech makers have studied rhetoric and know how to quickly and succinctly make their point with their words and their tone, musicians study the emotion that music conveys, and they eventually get much better at detecting subtle variations and manipulations in this emotion. It’s not a stretch to carry this over from music to human interaction.

The effect isn’t like an on/off switch—it’s a part of the brain that’s like a muscle in that it gets stronger or weaker depending on how much and how often you use it. People who play music regularly for years have much more highly developed subcortical sensory circuitry than people who don’t. So picking up the guitar tomorrow probably won’t have an immediate effect, although playing several times a week for a few years will have a significant effect.

If they sound familiar, it may be because they did the theme song for the recent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

If you think it sounds like an old Nintendo soundtrack, it’s for good reason—they actually use an old Nintendo to play their music. They actually program all of the electronic music, encode it on a chip, and then run the chip through the game system. They also go back and add some live guitar, bass, and drum tracks to thicken up the sound (the Nintendo only allows for five audio channels), but the core is always the Nintendo, which they actually have on-stage with them in concerts.

Sorry for the unofficial posting here. I’m Brandon, by the way. I was playing bass.

The artist is Lissie, a newer artist based out of Los Angeles. I haven’t checked out any of her other stuff, but I will be.

I listened to their album a bit and I couldn’t really wrap my mind around how in the hell Gabriella was strumming so fast. Even after watching this video, I have no idea how she’s doing it.

Anyway, apparently, both of them met while playing in a speed metal band (think Slipknot) in Mexico City, and decided to do an acoustic version of that with some Spanish guitar influences, and this is what they wound up with. They actually do covers of Metallica songs and other metal songs in their shows. This is crazy awesome music, folks.

I’m really impressed with them so far. Apparently, they almost won a Grammy for the song “Falling Slowly,” which appeared on the Once soundtrack, but lost out to some song from the Dreamgirls soundtrack.

Also, I’ve recently discovered some of Regina Spektor’s other albums (most notably, Soviet Kitsch) and I’m really digging those. I’ve always admired her music, but I’d only heard one album (Begin to Hope), and I couldn’t get into it as much as some of her other stuff.

For anyone who’s seen OtR in the past three years or anyone who’s heard Trumpet Child, you should also know that Mickey, their drummer, is officially retired now (from Over the Rhine, anyway). His last two shows with them were this past weekend.

Fans should know that Over the Rhine will be considering releasing an album of the covers they’ve done throughout the years. Some songs include “Fever,” “Hallelujah” (as made famous by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright), “Moondance,” and “Orphan Girl” (Gillian Welch cover). There are tons more, but those are all I can think of off the top of my head.

Janelle took some pictures, so I’ll link to those when they go up.

• Florence and the Machine
• Ra Ra Riot
• Ramona Falls

Sure, they rip off Rushmore. But more things should rip off Rushmore.

Also of note, Mr. Deviant Monk showed me this video a few months ago. I think it’s worth a view as well. (Embedding was disabled, so you’ll have to click the link.)